Treat WC 2022 as nothing more than experiment to see how players + national league seasons are impacted pre/post tournament by having its timespan as it will be.
I'm in a bit of a quandary with this... Domestic politically, I've a generally positive feeling towards Neville, but this complete evisceration on national TV is bloody funny and his 'reasoning' for participating is ridiculous. So I guess I'll just have to re-file him under 'Complete Twats' after all....
Why does that matter? Small size makes it easy for fans to get around. Absence of many local fans should certainly be a red flag but not necessarily a damming one. On human rights it certainly isn't worse than Russia and China.
The country doesn't have the facilities to host the competition. It doesn't have the population to apply any "growing the sport" justification, either. It's ridiculous. I'm with the Dortmund fans: please log in to view this image Also the Bayern fans: please log in to view this image '15,000 dead for 5760 minutes of football. Shame on you'
Qatar is ridiculous on so many levels. Not only the extreme human rights abuses, but little or no existing infrastructure, the negative ecological impacts, the disruption to established sports schedules, which in turn is amplifying the risk of injury to players in this compressed season. 300k inhabitants and they have had to create accommodation for 150k visitors! In comparison.... Ireland has never hosted a WC, has a population of 6m, 3 existing suitable stadia and enough established accommodation for well over 200k visitors. Oh - and we actually have an excellent Human Rights reputation and a national team that has had (limited) success in WC's and a flourishing economy that could possibly cope with the economics for staging such an event. A far more suitable choice for a blue riband sporting occasion? No, IMHO Ireland should not be considered as a suitable sole 'owner' of a WC tournament. But a preferable option to Qatar? Damn right!
I suspect the minimum is 8, all having max capacity of at ~40K. Given how many WC finalists would be from Europe, that would probably have to be increased in capacity "and enough established accommodation for well over 200k visitors." In Nov 2015 there was some kind of Web conference in Dublin. Not a really big deal, but was enough to eff up the visitor accommodation availability for a working work (1. see above 2. perhaps not a problem if you're ok with shared rooms in "backpacker" hostels) .
A name from the past Connor Wickham scored from the halfway line to help Forest Green beat South Shields 2-0 in the FAcup
Of course Ireland would be better than Qatar but Qatar has 3m inhabitants. They don't give migrant workers citizenship but then neither does the UK. If you looked at this issue from a middle Eastern viewpoint why would you think it OK to hold the tournament in a country where drug taking and alcoholism is rife, violence often happens at matches and where immigrant workers are routinely denigrated by senior government ministers and the media despite being only a small part of the population. There are many things wrong in Qatar but they are different things to those in western countries and if a neutral observer existed would they be able to rank them?
Qatar had zero when granted it. That was my point. And - as with Qatar - not all the accommodation would be hotel rooms. But if you look at 5 main centres being Dublin, Cork, Belfast (possibly), Galway and Limerick, there would be more than enough. But as I say, it's not viable under any measure.
Not sure whether post here or on Rival thread, but this is an interesting read and you wonder how many other clubs may be similarly embarrassed in the coming weeks. 'Due Diligence' appears to be somewhat lax, at least at Fulham...
Surely the point in this case is that thousands have died BECAUSE of the awarding of the world cup. Who abuses most would lead to a very small choice of countries but you could start with individual freedom such as in the UK where the population chooses to let arseholes run the country.
It's simply wrong that thousands of people have died. That statistic is calculated from the deaths of all 2.7m non residents in Qatar, and most of those would also have died wherever they would have lived.
